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194 8. The Anthropology Villages Self-selected volunteers in a desperate venture. Louisiana Purchase Exposition president David Francis McGee had gathered Native people from north, south, east, and west into an extensive outdoor exhibit. Francis always referred to them as the anthropology “colonies,” emphasizing the political status of the inhabitants. lpec publicists and McGee emphasized the peoples’ strangeness, billing them as exotic extremes—the tallest or shortest race, the ones who lived in the most remote places. Newspapers focused on the novelty and exoticism of cultural differences and presented them with mockery, ridicule, fascination, and incredulity. One reporter wrote of the Tehuelches: While the management is overjoyed at the prospect of another royal visitor to swell the list of crowned heads at the fair, they are somewhat perplexed as to the matter of full dress which his Patagonian majesty may elect to wear at the numerous functions at which he will be asked to assist. Although Patagonia is a cold country, the people of those parts are singularly unconventional about the amount of dress necessary, and full court costume there as a rule is said to consist of a bright smile and a nose ring. However, this rumor may prove untrue.1 Commentators rarely saw the foreign participants as individuals but as stereotypes . Visitors reacted to the Native peoples as cultural-racial types, just as McGee intended. Red Giants from the Extreme South: The Patagonian Tehuelches The local press greatly anticipated the Tehuelches’ arrival in mid-April. McGee fed reporters ethnographic information and tidbits about their journey. They responded with numerous articles, including a long description of their physical attributes and customs in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Sunday Maga- The Anthropology Villages | 195 zine. One combined McGee’s information with European fantasies, remarking that “[t]he giant has always had a place in legends, and literature. No other member of the human family has so readily lent himself to the imagination of humankind, all the world over. But never until now has the giant had a place at a world’s fair.” The reporter gave reasons for this: (1) rarity—“there is but one race of giants in the world”; (2) the negotiating ability of lpec agents—never before had “any white man enjoyed the confidence of these big barbarians to such an extent that he could induce them to leave the wilderness in which they live”; and (3) McGee’s insight—“not until Prof. McGee did any fair enjoy the services of a man whose knowledge of the primitive peoples of the world enabled him to know how to go about getting some of the races that had never been seen out of their own countries.”2 Another reporter wrote, “Professor McGee says that the Giants are up to expectations,” considering the Tehuelches the finest physical specimens to be seen at the fair. “Their strong serene and not uncomely faces indicate high mentality. Morally they are beyond unfavorable criticism. They are always gentle and courteous to each other. They are together a splendid type of pastoral people.” A fair historian wrote, “their chests are so deep, their bodies so robust and their limbs so large as to place them easily in the lead of the known primitive tribes in physical development.” Most were fascinated with their hair. The men’s “is thick and they wear it parted in the middle and bobbed even with the lobes of the ears, like the ‘Cromwell cuts’ now in vogue for little girls.” The women’s hair was longer than the men’s and “hangs in straight strings about the neck.”3 The Tehuelche contingent consisted of an extended family from the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina (fig. 8.1). There were five adult men, one adult woman (Lorenza), an eight-year-old girl named Giga, and a “yellow mongrel dog that was the mascot and acted as the autocrat of the group” (there were two dogs). Newspaper articles prominently featured the dog, which never left Lorenza’s side. The Patagonians referred to themselves as Tzonecas and tried unsuccessfully to get McGee, the press, and visitors to use their proper name, rather than Tehuelches, which means “southerners,” a term used by their neighbors. To avoid confusion, McGee preferred to use the term Patagonians so visitors would associate them with an exotic and mysterious locale at the southernmost end of South America. He was sure people would want to see [3.146.34.191] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 04:46...

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